


Two Hands Clasped Tight Against The Monsters

by everyperfectsummer



Series: Tumblr Prompts [31]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 18:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10519329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyperfectsummer/pseuds/everyperfectsummer
Summary: Prompt: Mick Rory and Leonard Snart. “Everything was fine, until you showed up.” OR "I will if you will." Dealer's choice. (I went with both.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lapsus_calami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsus_calami/gifts).



> Based partially on this [post.](http://airydoorway.tumblr.com/post/157577200153/the-untold-mythology-where-the-sister-is-the-one)

Hansel and Gretel, the girl and the seven swans, the red rose sister and the white rose sister, more stories whose details he can’t quite remember but boil down to this: siblings, hands clasped tight, facing down the evil stepmothers and wicked queens with the power of familial love.

 

He’s too old for fairy tales, but his mom used to read them to him and he listened, and he _learned,_ and so when his dad comes back from prison harder and crueler and mom leaves and he gets a baby sister, he thinks to himself: I should protect her.

 

It’s easier to deal with his dad if he thinks of it as noble, if he casts himself as the big brother protecting his baby sister from the world. If he’s enduring pain for a reason, if it’s his choice. Heroes protect those smaller and weaker, big brothers protect the younger siblings, that’s how the story goes, and it’s easier if he makes it a story, makes himself the protagonist. If it’s something he chooses, not something that happens to him.

 

So he tells himself the story of a boy who protects his sister from their father, when no one else would, and tries to make that story true. But no matter how tightly he weaves the words, holes peak through. Dad isn’t always an ogre. He asks about how Len did at school, and genuinely wants to hear the answer. He plays with him and Lisa, taking care to learn the names of all their dolls (although Len insists that his are action figures.) He’s nice, sometimes. And that’s the worst part.

 

Because the same man who tells him that he can grow up and be an engineer, the same man who drives him to practice and does his best to help him with his math homework once left Len unconscious, lying in his own blood.

 

And he was sorry afterwards. That’s what makes it the worst part. That he said sorry, and that he’d never do it again, and that he got Len ice and did a concussion check and patched him up, and said _I love you so much, I’m so sorry, I will never do this again, I promise you._

 

The worst part is that sometimes, Len believes him. No. The worst part, is that he has reason to. He knows his dad loves him, knows his dad truly cares, and is truly sorry. That his dad has sacrificed for the family, gone without buying things _he_ wants so that Len and Lisa could have extra toys or school supplies or whatever it is they need. And he also knows that no matter how much his dad cares about him, he’s still going to get hurt the next time he gets mad.

 

And he will get mad. And there’s nothing Len can do to stop it. Whether he throws himself in front of Lisa or abandons her completely, Len’s still going to get hurt eventually and there’s nothing he can do about it.

 

And just as Dad is made worse by having virtues, Lisa has flaws. For all that he loves her, she isn’t the perfect ally against the monsters that all the fairytales led him to expect. She’s kind and cruel by turns, according to her mood. She goes through stages of brattiness and whininess, throws tantrums for no reason, and deliberately gets him in trouble with their dad, knowing full well the consequences.

 

Sometimes, and here’s the part where the story goes wrong, he deliberately gets her in trouble, too.

 

After the first big scar that settles on her neck, the first scar that’s Len’s fault, because Dad had been mad, and Len had seen it, and not done anything to focus that anger on himself, get Lisa out of the blast radius and safe (He’d just. Hid in his room. Trying to keep _himself_ safe. And that makes it _his fault_ ) - after that, he tries to step up. Be the big brother protector that’s enshrined in the myths, be Lisa’s knight in shining armour.

 

And Lisa learns that she can count on him to take the blows, and sometimes she lets it happen and sometimes she tries to interfere, and for all that it’s his decision to protect her he resents her for it and she resents him too, and something in their relationship festers. Len protects Lisa and Lisa protects herself and every time Lisa fails to protect herself well enough and Len has to take the fall for her the cancer in their relationship worsens.

 

Until one day Mick Rory has seen too many bruises, heard too many convoluted excuses, and follows Len home.

 

They’re having dinner when the doorbell rings, and Dad gets up to answer it, only to return and say, “It’s a friend of yours, Len.”

 

Len gets up, meeting Mick in the doorway, sees the gun he’s packing and moves to stand between him and Dad. “Hey, Dad, is it ok if we hang out in my room and I finish dinner later?”

 

Dad waves a lazy hand. “Sure, go ahead.” He smiles at Mick, who returns it with a stony glare, and Len feels his heart jump into his mouth because _Mick what are you doing stop making him mad Mick please,_ and he ushers his friend upstairs to his room as quickly as possible.

 

“Mick, what’s going on?” he asks, voice low enough to not be heard from downstairs.

 

“You’re getting beat half to hell on the regular, figured I’d come and tell your dad that things better be fine from now on.”

 

“Everything _was_ fine, until you showed up,” Len whispers, annoyed. Mick stares at him, looking confused and god bless him for trying to help, but also fuck him for making this worse, what the _fuck_ Mick.

 

“I didn’t want to leave you and Lisa alone with your dad.”

 

“I can _handle_ my dad,” Len hisses under his breath, “I’ve handled him for years. You don’t know how to deal with him, you’re going to make it worse and I’m going to have to deal with the consequences."

 

Mick, unlike all the other well meaning bystander’s who’ve interfered over the years, is starting to look guilty.

 

“What was your plan, exactly? Show up and intimidate someone who works for the police _and the mob?”_

 

Mick shrugs, looking smaller by the second. “I just thought -”

 

“No,” Len cuts him off. “You leave my family alone.”

 

Mick raises an eyebrow. “I will if you will.”

 

“What?”

 

“Leave. Come with me.”

 

“I can’t leave Lisa with him.” Two hands, clasped tight against the monsters - that’s how the story goes.

 

“And I can’t leave _you_ with him,” Mick says.

 

There are footsteps, heading up the steps, too heavy to be Lisa’s, and Len hushes, instinct taking over, and puts a finger over his lips to quiet Mick as well. Mick reaches up, grabs Len’s hand, and moves it aside, replacing it with his lips just as the door opens.

 

“Len.” Dad’s voice is soft, and dangerous, and as Len yanks his head away from Mick’s he abruptly knows that there is no way he can stay in this house now without being killed.

 

He shoves Mick forward, using him as a human battering ram, and runs in his wake, down the stairs, out the door, and a few blocks away until they both stop to catch their breath. Len’s breathing hard, for more than one reason.

 

So is Mick, who’s reaching for him, and grabs his hand to hold him close. “Len, please, I’m sorry but I couldn’t let you stay there. I need you to be safe.” He takes a breath and adds “because I love you.”

 

“I love you too,” Len says through ragged gasps. “But I will never, ever forgive you. Not for this.”

 

* * *

 

 

Three years later, Len’s recruited to a heist that he can’t turn down, not if he wants to keep eating, and when he turns up he locks eyes with a pair so familiar he’ll never forget them.

 

“Mick,” he says, desperately trying to sound neutral.

 

“Len.”

 

It’s less than an hour before he’s able to slip away, tugging Mick behind him, into an empty room. “Looks like we’re going to have to work together on this job, Mi _ick._ Think you can do that? _”_

 

“We worked well together before.”

  


Len looks at him, and he remembers all the bitterness and anger and pain, but he remembers why he loves Mick, too.

 

“Tell you what,” Mick bargains, “We work together well on this job, too, and after this we start working as our own team. Partners. I’ll follow your lead, listen to your plans.”

  
_Two hands, clasped tight against the monsters._ “Partners it is,” Len says, already reaching his hand forward.


End file.
